NON-PLACES: Negotiating place is stretched out in time and space. Gathering a group of curators and artists the project has two aims. It deals with the notion of place vis-à-vis non-place, as it has been understood and used in the discourse of cultural theory parallel to the technocratic formation of western social apparatus. And in a process-based way it tries to find alternative working models for artistic production.

NON-PLACES is using the field of the art world, our common denominator, as a starting point, investigating whether the notion of non-place and its counterparts in the realm of today are productive while thinking around space, one of the fundamental parameters of human life.
With exhibitions and discussions, both public and closed, being held in Ufa, Russia 2005, and Gothenburg, Sweden 2006, the project is now a part of Belef, Belgrade Summer Festival, Serbia 2007. Within Belef the project opens up for reflection on how the intimacy of the particular is negotiated within the larger framework of the general.

www.belef.org

Artists/NON-PLACES: Kalle Brolin, Marina Ivashenko, Charlotte Karlsson, Sveta Menshikova, Petar Mirkovic, Milena Putnic, Maxim Rusakov & Pia Sandström. Curators: Dina Bulavina, Maja Ciric & Camilla Larsson.

Publication will be released autumn 2007, for more info larsson.camilla<at>gmail.com

Camilla Larsson, Curator
2007-06-05

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Art as production of space
Non-place and the negotiating of place

A curator’s work for me is about creating not only contact surfaces between art and its audience in the format of exhibitions but also to be an active part in the production of art and work in close collaboration with artists. This is the main reason why I got myself involved in the on-going project of Non-Places that is now half way to be finished, at least the parts we have so far planned. I have added the subtitle “negotiating place” to underline this collaboratively process; since we are not only looking at different ways of theoretically as well as artistically dealing with the theme, but also creating a common space in between us within the project. A space where we try to find a way to communicate and work parallel to the main routes of art institutions and the conventional ways of communicating.    

In the following text I will sketch a presentation of some of my sources of inspiration. This I hope will serve as a start for a more intense discussion that will lay the ground for the third exhibition in Belgrade. The exhibition is, so far, planned to evolve around a selection of certain places in Belgrade that at first sight are characterized by their loss of place-like qualities; refugee houses built on the roof tops of existing buildings and houses damaged in the different wars. How do people living in Belgrade deal with these spots? And are we here faced with places or rather non-places and what do these categories imply? The places make the city appear as a palimpsest as its layers of built structures are being exposed (by cuts and ruins in the cityscape) or juxtaposed (planned architecture against temporary constructions).     

After the critic of the Modernist idea of the arts as a universal entity relating to its own system of logic we are faced with various attempts to create another kind of art, often rooted in place and actual situation. In this development we can gather branches as the Land art or artists who were trying to expose how the use of space was a question of use and abuse of power. Such as the institutional critic represented largely by the Conceptual artists of the 60´s and 70´s whom directed their focus on the formation of the art system and its universal norms and codes. Robert Smithson serves as paradigmatic example developing an artistic oeuvre dealing with dialectical pairs such as nature/culture, language as material, space and time, monuments and the anti-monuments, displacement and landmark.1  Entropy was a recurrent theme which incorporated ideas on decay and renewal, chaos and order. With his famous earthworks he tried to create monuments that only existed in the present and in relation to places far away from any official historically sanctified context. His actual acts/works of art function as a vital negotiating of both place and ideas.   

Grounded in the ideas of Marxism the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre can be used as a relevant guide coining the notion appropriated space. A category that takes Marx’s critique of the capitalist division of private and public property as a departing point and expose how space is produced. And additionally how this production has become the issue exclusively for politically steered city planning. A political system based on the capitalist view on society. When Marx on one hand analysed space in more abstract terms, Lefebvre on the other hand looked into the detailed and specific qualities of space and the production of space. Taking into account not only the large scale structures and organisation of the system of the nation state but equally valuing everyday practice and rituals of the vernacular. Two different spaces were singled out by him; the dominated space, rigorously planned in before hand, and the appropriated space, where individuals are creating their own spaces in various ways. Following these thoughts Meike Schalk, architect and researcher at SLU in Alnarp, Sweden, arguing that contemporary art and activist projects could serve as examples of liable appropriation (ansvarstagande appropriering) of space.2  Projects that serve as temporary sources of inspiration because they act out and make visible the inherently contradictory production of space. Schalk is mentioning the work of the artist group Raketa as well as the art duo called Hållplats.   

As Marc Augé discussing the dilemmas of today’s anthropology using the notion non-place he is pinpointing the need for understanding and creating knowledge around contemporary living. He asks how we understand these certain places where no organic life can be rooted and where individuals are wrongly treated as a homogenous group. Places that bear no marks of place-like qualities. Augés problem of finding real meaning in these places and searching for specific features defining place serves as a refreshing reminder exposing the logic behind the construction of space that is based on preconceived ideas. Is it relevant to ask for this kind of meaning anymore? Wouldn’t it rather be more relevant to look for meaning based on the particular and singularity of specific sites and situations, such as the above mentioned artist groups?

As early as the 1950´s the American writer Jane Jacobs started to formulate her critic against the monolithic ideas of the Modernist separation of different functions.3  She wisely noted that where actual changes could take place was on the borders between these zones. Borders which at a first glance appear to hold nothing but waste and lost souls. (Thinking about John Steinbeck’s lively description on Canary Row in the book with the same title). This belief in the potential of the in between spaces has more and more frequently been used in contemporary thinking and art practice, because of its productive and revealing qualities. In between spaces that resist to be defined and therefore make room for another kind of life to grow. Jacobs looked at urban spaces such as the pavement, parks, and living areas always searching for ways of implementing spaces unspecified and open for the diversity of the individuals inhabiting the space.

During the summer 2006 the project Soft Sites has been running at ICA Philadelphia. Included are art works dealing with the phenomena of highlighting and preserving locations that have been objects for tragic disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis and terrorist attacks. According to the website the projects involves art works taking into account the “intangible qualities of location- history, desire, identity, culture and sense of time”.4  Could “soft site” be a productive category to be used in our discussion? A notion defining places that yet haven’t been subjects for organised collective memorial and occupied by monuments, but still are standing for something larger than themselves.

The Italian thinker Giorgio Agamben argues in a similar way in Coming Community when he’s pointing out that where actual change ever will be realised is on the thin line between the thing and itself.5 “Where a silver lining occur, where the state is vibrating, shimmering, and is found in an extreme singularity”6 . The thing when it’s neither essence nor universal, but rather beyond categorization. These borders are we looking for.  

Camilla Larsson
Stockholm 2006-09-25

1  Http://www.robertsmithson.com
2  Meike Schalk ”Konfliktens platser” in Hjärnstorm #87 2006, p 8-13.
3  Jesper Meijling ”Uppdrag: staden” in Arkitektur #3 2006, p 37-41.
4  Http://www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/past/softsites.php
Coming Community by Giorgio Agamben, 1993.
6  Hito Steyerl ”Euroscapes” in Hjärnstorm #87 2006, p 46-52.


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Exploration Visit Belgrade for the visual art project:
NON-PLACES                                                                                                                                          Negotiating place

Project description

Artist and art administrators, such as curators and critics, are categories of people living and working in the specific spaces of today’s society, which has served as the foundation of the notion of supermodernity. Supermodernity, coined by the French anthropologist Marc Augé, is describing and defining the characteristic of our western world, pinpointing what divide today from yesterday in terms of spatial formation and meaning imposed on space.   

Non-places are defined by Augé in various ways; one example is that they are transitory, connecting individuals in a uniform manner, where no organic social life is possible. They are argued to be the result of excess and overabundance of time, of place and of individuality. Airports, railway stations, hotels, refugee camps, motorways, shopping centres, housing estates in the peripheries serve as relevant examples.

On the contrary one effect of this highly designed, functionalised and compartmentalized society is areas not designed at all, but rather gaps of space in between the designed places.  These non-designed places, such as back yards, waste lands etc, inherit the same lack of qualities as the non-places described by Augé. Places those are not available at all in that sense that they can not bear any organic life. These places are seldom inscribed in the representational models of the bureaucratic machinery such as city plans, since they have no monetary or commercial value, and therefore they don’t even have the status of existing.      

The notion of non-places will be used as points of progress in countries such as Serbia and Montenegro or the Russian federation. We will also interpret them as referential points which are denominating the change of ideological paradigms. Non-place do not refer to individuals as emotional beings in Sweden or Western Europe. However, it should be noted that due to the multiplicity of choices, contexts, practices, theories and flows every interpretation of the contemporary society’s phenomenon would have to suffer from a constant lack of finality. Instead of defining and generalizing a non-place, we are about to represent the versatility of experiences it provokes.

Unless we value these places, the ones designed or not designed, as “good or bad”, living in this societal stage of supermodernity, we are using various strategies for coping with non-places. As follows in the realm of the artistic field various ways of depicting and dealing with these particular spaces are being adopted. The need for meaning is increasing as non-places as such are increasing.

Considering the way most part of the globally expanding art world of today has developed, as artist and art administrators we are constantly travelling, constantly involved in projects in new spaces and they are often seen as experts entrusted to deal with the production of meaning on different levels. In this peculiar case the production of meaning and knowledge of space. What could we then say about this current state of affairs? What perspective could the artistic field bring into the discussion regarding the creation of space?

By using the arena of the art world, that we all have in common, we are aiming at investigating whether the theoretical notion of non-place and its counterparts in the realm of today’s culture are adequate and productive ways of dealing with space, which is one of the most basic parameters of human life. The project also aims to gather versatile artistic presentations of the non-place concept.

Using discussions within the group, inviting external interlocutors and expressing our own interest artistically and theoretically in the shape of a project moving from different spaces, that is spaces situated in different geographical areas as well as different sort of art institutions, we would like to be able to both expand our own field of knowledge and interest. With the presentations, exhibitions and conferences we are about to bring to the surface as many statements as possible that were inspired by this phenomenon. Later on, the collected material is supposed to be analyzed in order to give us some evidence-based statements of the contemporary society.


Preliminary Time table

Summer 2006 Internal discussion within the project group, developmental and construction phase

Autumn 2006 Research trip to Belgrade, meeting with curators/artists, the core of the project will be discussed within the group and with relevant persons on site, developmental and construction phase (This application; support Prepatory Visit from Step Beyond) 
Spring – summer 2007 Exhibition in Belgrade by invitation
2007 – 2008 The project proceed

Working structure

Non-Places is a project divided into three parts bringing artists and curators from Sweden, Russia and Serbia-Montenegro. Every part has its own form of presentation but are brought together by the common concept and working process. The project is in its initial phase and is lead by both artists and curators.

The project brings together artists from three different nations to work with the notion of non-place which is imbedded in the discourse of the place/space. The aim is to deal with the notion collaboratively within the group and also with invited interlocutors such as theoreticians and writers during the process of the project.

Non-places will provide the participants with a longer time frame than the more conventional exhibition offers and is also focusing on the group dynamic created by the constant discussions, the open and non-hierarchical relations within the group, and the cumulative relation between the three different parts of the project.

Maja Ciric
Belgrade August 2006

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